Wheaton’s Post Hobby Lobby Victory

Good news for Wheaton College, the Evangelical school, in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision:

In a decision that drew an unusually fierce dissent from the three female justices, the Supreme Court sided Thursday with religiously affiliated nonprofit groups in a clash between religious freedom and women’s rights.

The decision temporarily exempts a Christian college from part of the regulations that provide contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The court’s order was brief, provisional and unsigned, but it drew a furious reaction from the three female members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The order, Justice Sotomayor wrote, was at odds with the 5-to-4 decision on Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which involved for-profit corporations.

“Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “Not so today.”

First, the college need not file a form prescribed by the government to claim the accommodation that would shift the legal duty to its insurer or plan administrator to provide the actual birth control services. The college objected even to filing that form, saying it put the college into the middle of assuring access to those services.

Second, the college need only write a letter to the government to claim an exemption.

Third, since the college has already written and sent such a letter, that is enough to block the government from enforcing the mandate in any way against the college.

Fourth, the order declared that it was not intended to affect “the ability of the [college's] employees and students to obtain, without cost, the full range of contraceptives [approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration].”

And, finally, to make it possible for that access to remain, the Court said the government may rely on the college’s letter to the government as the mechanism for facilitating the access to the birth control services. There is nothing in existing government regulations that allows such a letter instead of the government form, and nothing in those regulations that says such a letter is enough to guarantee access to birth control. But the Court order appears to be, in effect, a rewrite of those regulations.

Ed Whelan says that the dissenters — which notably do not include Justice Breyer, who dissented from the majority in Hobby Lobby — contradict themselves. Excerpt:

Sotomayor contends that the Court “retreats” from its position in Hobby Lobbyin which it “expressly rel[ied] on the availability of the religious-nonprofit accommodation.” But as the Ginsburg dissent in Hobby Lobby (which Sotomayor and Kagan joined) complained about, the Hobby Lobby majority expressly did not decide whether the accommodation satisfies RFRA. All it did was recognize that the accommodation showed that the HHS mandate was not the least restrictive means of advancing the supposed governmental interest.

In short, it is Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan, in falsely contending that the majority “retreats” from its position in Hobby Lobby, who in fact contradict their position in that case.

It’s worth noting that this injunction is temporary, no doubt pending the Court’s resolution of the Little Sisters of the Poor case. But it seems to my untrained eyes that this bodes well for the nuns.

This is good news, as far as I’m concerned. As a general rule, I hold an expansive definition of religious liberty. As a technical matter, I think that Whelan is right, and that there’s nothing in Hobby Lobby that contradicts the subsequent Court order. Still, I can understand why the three dissenting justices feel sandbagged. Justice Alito, in the majority opinion, held up the HHS carve-out for religious non-profits as an alternative HHS might have offered for-profit companies, but did not. Now the Hobby Lobby majority, joined by Justice Breyer, rejects even that possibility.

But not definitively, and that’s why I think there’s less here than meets the eye. Again, the injunction is temporary, and is no doubt pending the full Court hearing the Little Sisters case, which will decide whether or not the government’s carve-out for religious non-profits is a reasonable and sufficient accommodation of religion. Given the moral stakes of the question, it makes sense that the Court would grant temporary injunctions pending its decision on the overall question. It’s entirely possible that the Court will rule in favor of the government in the Little Sisters case. The fact that Justice Breyer, a Hobby Lobby dissenter, signed on with the majority in issuing the temporary injunction is a clue to the limited nature of this decision. It is too early for either side to claim victory or defeat based on this temporary injunction.

They should have just ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional back in 2012 and put the ACA out of its misery. As it is this is like watching a western where the gun fighter shoot at the ground saying dance to the helpless villagers.

“Justice Alito, in the majority opinion, held up the HHS carve-out for religious non-profits as an alternative HHS might have offered for-profit companies, but did not. Now the Hobby Lobby majority, joined by Justice Breyer, rejects even that possibility.”

I’m not sure if you’re misunderstanding this, or I am. This looks to me like much ado about nothing.

The Court said Wheaton need not fill out the form, but may merely submit a letter, which it has already done, and “to make it possible for that access [to contraceptives] to remain, the Court said the government may rely on the college’s letter to the government as the mechanism for facilitating the access to the birth control services.”

So, the employees of Wheaton who want the services Wheaton objects to still get them under the accommodation, which is now in effect for Wheaton as a result of a letter, not a form.

I can think of a million other cases, some of which you have probably written about over the years. My prediction is that when you did, your position was easily summarised as, “You don’t live where you used to live. While I’m sympathetic to your social conservative goals, and believe me, I am, you need to adapt to where you live.”

I suspect that this is true because when we were surveying on this, these were all scenarios that we presented as instances of freedom on par with what Wheaton, Conestoga, etc. wanted to do, and every time, all the Christian conservatives supported every assertion of Christian religious privilege and opposed every assertion of non-Christian religious privilege.

Why? Our surveys tell us that this is not about religious freedom as religious freedom, but that this is about maintaining privilege for a grouping of society that is either definitely majority status or at least has enough social capital to strongly influence the norms thereof.

All of these other examples may seem utterly absurd to your eyes, possibly, straw men, but I assure you that these are things that are very deeply felt burdens by practitioners of these religions, and actions that they would undertake in a heartbeat if they thought that they were permitted. In many cases, they still try and get beaten down for trying it.

Anecdotally, completely outside of social sciences, I had a friend in college who was what you would call a cradle Catholic. He was Polish-American from Chicago. Catholicism was as big a part of him as eating pieorgies or riding the El. Anyway, he got fired from a restaurant job in college because he refused to bring a bottle of wine to a table that had a pregnant woman at it. His claim was that there was a chance that she’d drink it and that that’d make him complicit in attempted murder.

Big surprise: nobody thought that he had any right to act on this belief.

I’ve been reading you for several years now, understanding and empathizing with your frustrations about the cultural inroads secularist and liberals have made, even as I’ve disagreed with many of your positions on the issues at stake. But this is the first time I’ve felt something akin to pity. THIS is where you feel triumphant about holding the line – birth control? And not even birth control per se, but on a Christian college’s refusal to fill out a form stating their objection to covering contraception?

I totally disagree on the merits of the temporary injunction, for the reason Paul Waldman lays out in the Washington Post today here”

“One of the central points Alito made in the Hobby Lobby decision was that the company could be exempted from the law’s requirement that insurance plans cover contraception because there was a less restrictive means for the government to achieve its goal. This less restrictive means, he said, was the procedure the government had set up for religious non-profits: the group signs a form stating its objection and gives a copy to the government and to its third-party insurance administrator, which will can then arrange for people to get contraception without the non-profit’s involvement or money. The fact that this procedure exists is what Justice Alito himself cited in the Hobby Lobby decision as proof that there was a less restrictive means for the government to accomplish its goal of guaranteeing preventive care, and for Hobby Lobby to keep clear of any involvement in contraception.Yet in yesterday’s order, the conservative justices said this procedure —signing a form — is itself an unacceptable “burden” on Wheaton College’s religious freedom. . . .”

I believe this injunction, if it stands, will as liberals have warned open the floodgates to religious objections to all kinds of other practices currently enshrined in law – and all kinds of laws that non-Christian religions find objectionable. (Wait till we see how this Supreme Court deals with THAT can of worms.) But leaving those rather significant consequences aside, what I find saddening is on what shaky ground the right has decided to make its stand – how far removed from even the Christian mainstream, how unlikely the victory long term, and how Pyrrhic a victory it would be, as the backlash it will generate will undermine the very arguments you and others have been making all along about trying to reach a fair accomodation. “Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it” has never seemed more apt.

Re refusing to bring a bottle of wine to a pregnant woman, assuming she was the one about to drink it, seems far more reasonable than refusing to cover health insurance for employees because some might negotiate separately with the insurance company to extend their coverage to certain prescription drugs or treatments you find morally offensive. For one thing, your cooperation in the former is direct; in the latter, it’s remote to negligible.

I haven’t read the opinion, but I think it bodes well for the Little Sisters of the Poor based on the standard for temporary (“preliminary”) injunctions. One of the factors courts look at in deciding whether to grant a preliminary injunction is whether there is a “likelihood of success on the merits.” There are also three other factors. Again, I haven’t read the decision so I don’t know to what degree the Court relied on which factors, but my initial impression on reading this is that it gives some indication of where the Court sits in relation to the merits of the accommodation.

The Wheaton ruling is very confusing. Either Kagan is right, and it contradicts what Alito just said in Hobby Lobby, or it’s so unclear even three of the justices completely misunderstood its meaning. I’m beginning to suspect the only principle guiding Alito and his fellow conservatives right now is a tacit agreement to do whatever it takes within some sort of reason to effectively dismantle the mandate for Christians without having to directly argue the case for doing so.

The closer they get to getting 100% of what they want, the more asinine and hysterical they will get about the 1-2% they are not getting.

Also, the exemption that Obama wrote in is no exemption at all; the insurance won’t cover contraception, but the insurance company has to give it away for free to people who buy its insurance. That IS the insurance covering contraception, and just calling it something else.

Anytime the Court favors individual conscience and religious belief over government mandate and control is usually a cause for celebration in this (erstwhile?) Land of Liberty. The so-called “progressive” response to this much limited decision has been shallow, disappointing but maybe predictable. It should be worth the price of a condom to know there still may be limits to what your miserable government can make you do. The question should not be directed only at believers as to what we wish not to do but always to the government as to what limits, if any, are there as to what you may compel me to do.

I understand you approve of the outcome this injunction points toward, but I also wonder if you can actually argue with a straight face that filling out a form declaring you plan to take advantage of a religious exemption from a law constitutes a “substantial burden” with a straight face, and still claim words have meanings.

The analogy with the Quaker pacifist and the draft seems spot-on to me: A pacifist is drafted, and claims a religiously motivated objection to serving. He is excused from service, but is made to fill out a form! (And is burdened with knowing someone else will be drafted to take his slot.)

Unlike many of my fellow secular liberals, I’m supportive of religious exemptions when possible and reasonable. But a definition of substantial burden that goes this far seems completely unworkable if applied generally.

Nobody (in the press at least) has adequately explained why filling out the form was not acceptable to Wheaton College. It seems to me that there was a form available to religious objectifies. Fill it out and move on. Other colleges and non profits did, and they did not use up our tax dollars for a more difficult accommodation. How is this dissimilar to a form that a Quaker would fill out when they were drafted that stated they would not take up arms? What if that Quaker instead wanted to write a direct letter to the government stating his views? Does that make them stronger, or more “holy” than the other Quakers that did not? It also cause more beaucracy.

I suspect otherwise, to be honest. Here are a couple of things that I doubt you’d support.

Go on, I’ll bite.

1. Hindu Brahmins refusing to allow lower caste people into businesses that they own.

2. Jains refusing to let hotel rooms to people whom they suspect of eating meat, fish or any plant item with roots, as these people would be murderers.

3. Muslim taxi drivers refusing to pick up fares from single passenger unmarried women, people carrying alcohol or people who’ve been drinking alcohol.

I fully support that, of course.
With or without Religion, I insist on the right to refrain from any form of friendly intercourse of people whose behaviour I dislike.

5. Hasidic Jews accosting women who ride bicycles through Brooklyn.
Why is this different? If you can’t figure that out, you are a dunce. HINT: voluntary association.

4. Muslim restaurant employees refusing to serve tables who order alcohol.
Pulling a fast one, eh? Make that the right of Muslim restaurant OWNERS to bar alcohol consumers, and I shall happily support that, while indulging in a scrumpy cider myself.

The untramelled right of a supposedly free agent to have zero-zippo-zilch to do with people he doesn’t approve of.

Molly and Darrel, as I understand it the objection to the form is twofold:

First, the Little Sisters of the Poor are arguing that they should simply receive the same religious exemption that churches and other religious groups receive; by saying they’re “not religious enough” to qualify for the *automatic* exemption the Government is interfering in Church business in violation of the very principle of the separation of Church and State which most of us find so important. (And taken in the context of the sheer number of totally secular, for-profit companies that have been granted a complete exemption from compliance with any portion of the ACA, not just the contraception mandate, it’s particularly egregious and offensive to tell a group of nuns who care for the elderly that they’re not “religious enough” to qualify for the automatic religious exemption.)

Second, the form does not say, “We object to providing this coverage,” period end of sentence. It says, in effect, “We object to providing this coverage AND THUS by signing this paper we understand that we hereby authorize this third-party to purchase and administer this coverage on our behalf.” In Catholic theological understanding, the fact that signing this paper is the mechanism by which the contraceptive coverage will be purchased still makes those who sign the paper complicit in the purchase of the contraception.

My belief is simple: because freedom of religion is so important a civil right that it is enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the government should ALWAYS err on the side of too much accommodation, not too little. If that means that a Muslim cab driver would have the right not to accept me as a passenger if I were traveling alone after dark with a bottle of wine and a puppy–FINE! I absolutely support his right to do exactly that. I won’t even insist that he has the duty to call a different driver for me if that would make him an accomplice to my late-night contraband-laden cab ride in his mind; it’s nice if he wants to do that, but otherwise, I have a phone and can find a different company and driver myself.

I think that people have forgotten that freedom of religion is one of our nation’s fundamental civil rights, guaranteed to all. And no, if your “religion” is the absence of religion, that doesn’t mean that you are entitled to force religious believers to shed their beliefs in order to be present and active in civil society just to accommodate your belief that religion is a crock.

This is coming down to “See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil,” now go and do your evil out of our sight. Its getting a little tedious, symbolic, and really not worth the time and attention its getting.

“This is good news, as far as I’m concerned. As a general rule, I hold an expansive definition of religious liberty. As a technical matter, I think that Whelan is right, and that there’s nothing in Hobby Lobby that contradicts the subsequent Court order.”

It is good news and contra to what your progressive readers fear, it is limited to the narrow issue of the contraception mandate, so in no way opens any floodgates.
This is a caution for conservatives as well, I would think.

To me, the difference between “sending a letter” and “filling out a form” is next to nil, but it’s not my conscience being offended. It seems to be common sense, though, that if you want to claim an exemption from some law, some notice to the government of your claim is appropriate.

Arguing about the particular form of the notice seems asinine. What’s next–churches demanding to be tax-exempt without having to file any forms asserting their tax-exempt status, and claiming that the paperwork violates their rights? Puh-leaze.

That said, I suspect that what Wheaton and Sisters of the Poor really want, is their employers to not have ANY contraceptive coverage available. If these organizations had their druthers, such therapies wouldn’t be available at any price, even out of pocket–but given that Griswold is still controlling precedent, the best they can hope for trying to make “slut pills” and “slut sticks” as expensive as possible.

As far as the ACA goes–I’d happily trade the whole kit and kaboodle for single-payer. As I’ve noted many other times; eliminating employers as middlemen would solve many, many problems. However, ObamaCare appears to be working fairly well in places where the authorities aren’t trying to throw wrenches in the gears–many more people have health coverage, some medical charities are actually shutting down due to lack of needy customers, and the nation’s ERs are seeing far fewer uninsured patients whose care they have to eat the cost of.

In short–the current state of affairs seems a vast improvement over the pre-ACA medical environment. The suggestion that conflict over the contraception mandate is grounds for scrapping the entireity of the ACA is utterly ridiculous. Unless, of course, you want to replace it with something else that provides universal (or near-universal) coverage. Single payer would work. A public option would work. Allowing universal access to the exchanges, even for persons who have employer coverage available, would also work–were that done (and the exchanges fully funded and operational in all 50 states), I wouldn’t care so much about what private insurance plans cover.

If the general theory that the HHS Department seeks to impose by its actions is not a religion, then what is it exactly? Nontheistic religions exist. Certain forms of Buddhism and Hinduism are nontheistic, and are certainly religions. The HHS Department is clearly reasoning from certain principles in requiring the provision of contraceptives. Frankly, I think that the Left is trying to establish a kind of liberal Protestantism de facto if not de jure.

Justice Alito’s opinion in the Hobby Lobby case included the holding that the requirements of RFRA, that any regulation imposed in pursuit of a compelling governmental objective upon one who objects on religious grounds must be modified to impose the LEAST restrictive burden consistent with achieving that governmental objective, applies to closely-held for profit corporations. Justice Alito also pointed out that because the form the government had made available to non-profit religious institutions to exempt them from complicity in objectionable medical procedures, it was clear the same accommodation could be made for companies like Hobby Lobby.

Then, in the Wheaton College case, in which that non-profit institution, undeniably entitled to assert the protections of RFRA, asserted that even signing the form made it complicit in making available to its students objectionable medical treatment, the Court noted that simply by filing a letter with the government objecting to having either the ACA requirement or the form imposed upon it resulted in the government making available to the covered population the same objectionable procedures, at no cost to the patients, and that therefore THAT might be an even less restrictive means of achieving the same governmental objective, so that the Court would have to determine whether that accommodation would be required by RFRA.

I see no inconsistency here. Since there is nothing to stop the government from making objectionable medical procedures available to anyone it wishes, with or without the complicity of a profit or non-profit institution or employer, such complicity is not required to fulfill the governmental objectives of the ACA, and no company which objects on the basis of religious scruples should be obliged to comply with the requirements of the ACA in any respect.

Then the ball would be in Congress’ court to decide whether it really wants to fund all the medical rights it sought to impose upon America’s non-profit and for profit institutions.

Justice Alito’s opinion in the Hobby Lobby case included the holding that the requirements of RFRA, that any regulation imposed in pursuit of a compelling governmental objective upon one who objects on religious grounds must be modified to impose the LEAST restrictive burden consistent with achieving that governmental objective, applies to closely-held for profit corporations. Justice Alito also pointed out that because the form the government had made available to non-profit religious institutions to exempt them from complicity in objectionable medical procedures permitted the government to achieve its objectives by having those procedures provided at the expense of the government or the insurer, it was clear the same accommodation could be made for companies like Hobby Lobby.

Then, in the Wheaton College case, in which that non-profit institution, undeniably entitled to assert the protections of RFRA, asserted that even signing the form made it complicit in making available to its students objectionable medical treatment, the Court noted that simply by filing a letter with the government objecting to having either the ACA requirement or the form imposed upon it resulted in the government making available to the covered population the same objectionable procedures, at no cost to the patients, and that therefore THAT might be an even less restrictive means of achieving the same governmental objective, so that the Court would have to determine whether that accommodation would be required by RFRA.

I see no inconsistency here. Since there is nothing to stop the government from making objectionable medical procedures available to anyone it wishes, with or without the complicity of a profit or non-profit institution or employer, such complicity is not required to fulfill the governmental objectives of the ACA, and no company which objects on the basis of religious scruples should be obliged to comply with the requirements of the ACA in any respect.

Then the ball would be in Congress’ court to decide whether it really wants to fund all the medical rights it sought to impose upon America’s non-profit and for profit institutions.

“The HHS Department is clearly reasoning from certain principles in requiring the provision of contraceptives. Frankly, I think that the Left is trying to establish a kind of liberal Protestantism de facto if not de jure.”

HHS was only following an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling going back to 2000 that said companies providing prescription drugs for their employees must include birth control coverage. The far-from-liberal Bush administration apparently agreed, because they let the order stand. When the ACA passed, HHS asked the Institue of Medicine, a non-profit, non-governmental agency that provides advice to government on biomedical issues, to give guidelines for preventive care coverage, and those guidelines included contraceptive treatments in a preventive care package for women. If you call this a conspiracy, conservatives had at least a part in it at one time.

Re: If that means that a Muslim cab driver would have the right not to accept me as a passenger if I were traveling alone after dark with a bottle of wine and a puppy–FINE!

Freedom of religion applies to religious acts. It’s an abuse of language to stretch it beyond that. Driving a cab is not a religious act in any faith I have ever heard of. It is certainly not a pillar of Islam, and I doubt will find anything about it in the Qu’ran or the Hadith. If the cab driver needs to take periodic breaks to heed the call to prayer I will support his right to do so against any employer who seeks to deny him that right. But who he accepts as passengers (assuming proper behavior on the part of the passenger) is not covered but “freedom of religion”.

Re: If that means that a Muslim cab driver would have the right not to accept me as a passenger if I were traveling alone after dark with a bottle of wine and a puppy–FINE!

Freedom of religion applies to religious acts. It’s an abuse of language to stretch it beyond that. Driving a cab is not a religious act in any faith I have ever heard of. It is certainly not a pillar of Islam, and I doubt will find anything about it in the Qu’ran or the Hadith. If the cab driver needs to take periodic breaks to heed the call to prayer I will support his right to do so against any employer who seeks to deny him that right. But who he accepts as passengers (assuming proper behavior on the part of the passenger) is not covered but “freedom of religion”.

But it would appear to be covered by freedom of association. Especially since it is not written in stone that a taxi-driver is an employee.

Anyway, do you fully support the right of a Muslim taxi-owner to refuse to cater to wine-carriers?

JonF, for some devout Muslims, being forced to carry an unaccompanied female passenger after dark who is carrying both wine (which they reject as immoral) and a puppy (which is at least culturally if not religiously “unclean”) is indeed a violation of their religious beliefs.

In fact, insisting that freedom of religion *only* covers certain express religious acts is denigrating freedom of religion to its lesser cousin, freedom to worship. But the First Amendment *begins* as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The free exercise of one’s religion means the freedom to practice it. It doesn’t mean the freedom to practice it only in one’s church, temple, synagogue or mosque; it means the freedom to practice it. A law requiring all people to consume meat on Fridays would clearly be unconstitutional, even though people don’t generally consume meat during their Sunday (or Saturday or Friday) religious services. Laws requiring people to swear on the Bible in courtrooms have long accommodated those who are not Christian or who, though Christian, considered it an offense against God to swear on a Bible, or to swear an oath at all, yet appearing in a courtroom to give testimony is hardly a religious act.

The right to the free exercise of one’s religion is one of our nation’s founding principles. Many who came here from England and Europe were fleeing religious persecution. Some of that came in the form of heavy taxes for not attending the established church’s worship services, but some of it took the form of legal harassment (e.g., the banning of the celebration of Christmas which continued even in some of the original colonies which considered such celebrations “papist” and therefore forbid them to all people in the colony).

It can’t be said enough: the free exercise of religion is not, and never has been, the mere freedom to worship. It is the freedom to act according to one’s religious beliefs even in the public square without fear of reprisal. If Americans lose that right, they lose one of the most unique and important rights they have.

@JonF, true, but if the mandate was struck down it would have made the ACA not viable financially, and the insurance companies would have pushed for repeal after that.

Frankly the ability to have an employer’s sincerely held belief (even ones that are false) trump coverage requirements seems like it could be used as a backdoor repeal mechanism. Given the disdain for the law on the right, I can’t see how an opening like that will be left unexploited.

To all the cab drivers not taking passengers carrying alcohol, check out clerks who can’t touch packages containing pork, and pharmacists who can’t dispense drugs that they consider immoral.

I support your right to have your belief, but if your conscience prevents you from doing a job, then it would be best if you got a new job. Otherwise you’re making a nuisance of yourself to your customers and coworkers.

It can’t be said enough: the free exercise of religion is not, and never has been, the mere freedom to worship. It is the freedom to act according to one’s religious beliefs even in the public square without fear of reprisal. If Americans lose that right, they lose one of the most unique and important rights they have.

But in many cases, the right being asserted is the right to impose upon someone else–and the person being imposed upon has rights as well that need balancing. In the case of the taxi driver, it has long been the established norm of practice in the taxi industry that taxis are an “essential service” drivers may not discriminate against fares based on arbitrary criteria. This doesn’t prevent some drivers from turning off the hire light whenever they see a black person on a curb, but passengers have a reasonable expectation that when they hail a cab, the cab will stop to pick them up. Given that the taxi profession is highly regulated in many cities, with the supply of taxis restricted to keep fares at a level which (allegedly) allows the drivers a reasonable wage (in practice, many medallions are held by corporations that “rent” them to drivers for a pittance), it’s not unreasonable to ask taxi drivers to mind their own business concerning the passengers’ baggage.

In other commercial interactions, I might well favor the vendor over the customer. I have some sympathy for cake vendors who actually need to participate in same-sex weddings; I have little sympathy for a restaurant owner who throws out two men he happens to notice holding hands in the corner booth.

And one other interesting point: A good argument that the RFRA establishes religion by giving religious organizations or persons rights that the irreligious don’t enjoy. (This has long been a feature of First Amendment jurisprudence–war protesters who were Quakers were given CO status, war protesters who legitimately opposed warfare but not based on a particular religious tenets, were sent to Vietnam). Should secular ideologies also enjoy “freedom of conscience”? What if said secular ideology brands itself as a “church”? How do we determine what is a bona-fide religion for purposes of the RFRA?